Teabag Anger

I find the conservative outrage about government debt and spending nothing more than a republican backlass at Democrats in DC. Our nation had been put in debt by 8 years of Bush spending and killing Americans in Iraq for a mismanaged, false war.
Today this teabag approach is a pitiful way of blaming it all on the White House today.
Please remember that BUSH created the debt mess, BUSH DID IT!
Ridiculous antics all fired up by talking heads on radio and tv. All because Obama is in office.

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There is a reason for the backlash and it's not just because the Democrats are in DC.

Go back and look at what Pelosi and Reid called Bush's budgets. They called them "unpatriotic" and "dangerous". The same thing these "teabaggers" are doing today. The difference now is that the "teabaggers" really have something to complain about.

During the Bush administration, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the Republican budget “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” because it increased the amount of U.S. debt held by foreign countries. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of going on “an unprecedented and dangerous borrowing spree” and declared GOP leadership “the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of our country … no other president or Congress even comes close.”

Let's compare budges:

A check of historical tables compiled by the Office of Management and Budget shows that the spending that so distressed Pelosi and Reid seems downright modest today. After beginning with a Clinton-era surplus of $128 billion in fiscal year 2001, the Bush administration racked up deficits of $158 billion in 2002, $378 billion in 2003, $413 billion in 2004, $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006, $162 billion in 2007, and $410 billion in 2008.

The current administration would kill to have such small numbers. President Barack Obama is unveiling his budget this week, and, in addition to the inherited Bush deficit, he’s adding his own spending at an astonishing pace, projecting annual deficits well beyond $1 trillion in the near future, and, in the rosiest possible scenario, a $533 billion deficit in fiscal year 2013, the last year of Obama’s first term.

Earlier this year, we saw the signing of the $787 billion stimulus bill, the rollout of a $275 billion housing proposal, discussion of Congress’s remaining appropriations bills (about $400 billion) and word of a vaguely-defined financial stabilization plan that could ultimately cost $2 trillion. When representatives of GM and Chrysler said they might need $21 billion more to survive, it seemed like small beer. Now you factor in Obama's healthcare plan and you begin to wonder where in the world are we going to get all this money?

Bush's deficits are small potatoes compared to Obama's spending. There is no backlash against Obama as a person or the Democrats for just being Democrats, it's a backlash against the spending that will lead to higher taxes and fewer freedoms.

Keep thinking "BUSH DID IT" and you and you children's futures will be spent standing in the soup lines. The backlash has nothing to do "because Obama is in Office"; REMOVE THE WOOL FROM IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT THE FACTS!!!

This is what gets my goat. Blame Bush all you want (he deserves it), but Obama has a super-majority in Congress and hasn't done anything to reverse Bush's policies. Indeed, he has expanded many of them (witness the push in Afghanistan and the continuation of the "stimulus" bills).

Obama must know something we don't. Perhaps, maybe, Bush's wars did some good.

As for spending, nobody required Obama to follow Bush's wandering footsteps into the wilderness of debt, either. And Obama has kept on walking.

Bush may be a fool; certainly he spent money like one. But - and this is important, vital even - that's not an excuse for Obama to one-up him in the spending and war-fighting arenas. Obama can undo much of the damage - he's a president with a strong congressional powerbase behind him.

Not to mention the cost of hiring more employees and buying equipment for the airport and rail security systems. Increasing border personnel. Updating security measures with the US Coast Guard.

Sure the Iraq War was expensive as any war is, but remember some of those war costs were in Afghanistan which is still a problem. We WON in Iraq and now are focusing on Afghanistan. Fighting terrorists cost money and Obama is now having to pick up where Bush left off. Fighting terrorists is still expensive.

Obama is sliding down the slope of approval ratings and will probably continue. In fact, he is lower than Bush in August of his first term. The only recent president lower was Clinton. Will Obama set the low record for recent presidents?

Just to clarify something, tax payers protesting how their tax dollars are spent are called tea partiers. Tea bagging is what the current administration is doing to the American public.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the economy no matter which party you are for. I was willing to give the prez a chance and have done so. Without name calling, I don't think that spending is the way to get out of debt. I do not want any more of my tax dollars thrown at pet projects and social experiments. I do not support Obama's policies.

While Obama is vacationing, he should look over the Clinton presidency. Clinton has the record for low approval ratings through August of the first year. But Clinton changed tactics and became a centrist Democrat. His approval ratings went up.

Of course the dot.com boom helped the economy and he got credit even though he himself didn't have any effect on the economy.

But Obama will have to also change tactics and move toward a centrist stand if he is to save his presidency. The far left and unions are not helping him. The blue dog Democrats have it right.

I am tired of libs blaming conservatives for the debt. Yes, Bush and the Republican congress overspent and ran us into debt but they were not conservatives. They were lost souls trying to buy votes (like democrats) instead of living by conservative principles. That is why the right thinking American folks didn't support the Republicans in the last election. We voted out many of those Republicans. The Dems have clear-headed American conservatives to thank for their current power and not some mandate from the masses to institute socialism.

If we kicked out Republicans because their overspent, then why would we sit by and let the Democrats triple that debt? For myself, I will triple my anger and protest harder.

First, exactly how does one go about voting someone out of office? It's not like the polls offer the voters a "yes" or "no" response. Someone has to win, and one or more has to lose. By assuming that someone is voted out then this means that conservatives must have voted for Democrats out of spite. So you're the ones to blame for having such a heavily Democratic government. Way to go, conservatives! Sorry, but one base simply does not have that much voting power, unless you want to believe that post by OG that claims that more than 50% of the country now consider themselves to be conservatives. I say phooey.

Second, I still want someone to prove just how they seem to believe that political conservatives live up to their namesake. Reagan is supposed to be the "go to" example of just what a conservative should be, but he was at the helm when unemployment reached 10.5%; during one of the worst recessions until our current one and took a national debt of around $750 billion under Carter to nearly $3 trillion in less than 5 years. Our nation went from one of the largest international creditors to one of the largest debtors in the world. How, in any way of thinking, is that being fiscally conservative? Add to that, Reagan's dramatic tax cuts in the highest brackets, which heavily reduced federal revenue, and we have one of the worst fiscal policies in US history. I just don't get how that can be perceived as a good thing.

Someone...anyone, please enlighten the readers of this site with one example of sound conservative fiscal policy. Please.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

OG, I agree. And you also stated that you didn't agree with the poll. We're both in agreement on that point.

The other point is that I keep hearing how conservatives "voted out" the politicians that they didn't like. I simply find those statements to be rather arrogant and simply unfounded. Unfortunately, for conservatives, there just aren't many conservative politicians that the rest of the nation is willing to get behind. Bush has done some serious damage. I've offered this before (I love this one): he entered office as a social conservative and left a conservative Socialist. That still makes me chuckle.

The final point here is that conservatives will continue to pound the issue of Obama's spending. If spending, and increasing the deficit, is the wrong way, then there must be a right way (pardon the pun). But history has not provided proof that Republicans are any better than Democrats at controlling spending. In fact, there are many bar graphs floating out there on the internet that will prove the opposite: that the deficit (at least in relation to the GDP) had actually declined while a Democratic pres. was in office. While I'm not suggesting that the president was the reason for the decline, suggesting that Democrats are the biggest spenders, and that Obama is the biggest of all, is just not accurate.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

I think conservatives approved of what Reagan was spending money on. Bringing our national defense back up from the pits after Carter and even making us the leader in world weaponry. I saw it as an investment for the present and the future. And remember, we did win the arms race with the Soviets and won the cold war without a shot fired. It is the "big stick" as Teddy Roosevelt said in dealing in international diplomacy.

I think many conservatives are business like people. Spending on infrastructure means providing jobs and a way for citizens to make a living for themselves. It is what makes the economy thrive. Conservatives are not against spending as long as it appears as an investment and there is a businesslike approach on how the initiative will be paid for.

Debt is nothing new to business people. We use debt all the time in our business plans. Borrowing for specific purposes with a strategy for using it and then having a reasonable way of paying it back is par for the course. But there has to be a reason for the debt.

Not too different than a family using debt as a way to buy a home or car. Every family needs shelter, so it is a need. However, debt for boats, planes and other nice to haves is not a need, but a want. If it can be handled in a responsible way, go for it.

What conservatives don't like are entitlement programs and money being given away without expecting anything in return. An entitlement means it is an expense that once started will continue into the future. Of course we have handicapped and needy people and conservatives will accept responsibility for providing for those people. But the line in the sand is when taxpayer money is used to buy votes.

OK, some GOPers are just as guilty as Dems. It is not so much a party thing as it is a liberal vs conservative thing.

Heron, but did the Cold War end due to Reagan's build-up of armaments, or did the U.S.S.R. simply self-implode because of their own fiscal and military ineptness, and by spreading themselves too thin? Then there is Grenada. I know, personally, of a few people who will argue the fact that there were not any shots fired during the Cold War.

And, while I'm not overly bothered by it, I do find it a little offensive--and rather one-sided--for you to think that business sense is a conservative trait. Turn on CNBC or Fox Business, watch it for no more than two minutes and anyone will see that business-minded individuals are rather evenly split in their political leaning. I, for one, have worked with the so-called conservative-minded business individual, and I've found that they typically lean more to the side of "bean counting" and cost cutting, but seem to forget that what actually makes them money is their product and/or service. Staring at a P&L statement for hours while siting behind a desk, and making decisions based solely on numbers is no way to run a business. I've witnessed, on more than one occasion, quality businesses, which were initially conceived and steadily grown into a profitable company by a liberal (shudder), business-minded individual, being bought out by conservative-minded corporations only to be driven into the ground. The buyers just didn't have a clue of how to make the business work; they spent all of their time in meetings, rather than trying to please the customer. Sorry for the rant.

I agree that government-spent money on infrastructure is an investment for the future. The thing is that individuals are a part of that infrastructure. Regardless of what conservatives may think, nearly everyone has an ingrained desire to be productive. Heck, even drug dealers and thieves are productive, in there own way. But offering everyone a fair and balanced (wow, I actually used that phrase) opportunity to be productive within the law is where I think the liberal mindset is focused. Not for just offering a general hand-out. That includes reasonable access to a quality education and health-care.

Speaking of being productive: during the Reagan years, production rates actually decreased. Even though the tax cuts were expected to increase production through the "trickle down" effect. Maybe this is why Bush Sr. called Reagan's economic plan "voodoo economics". Basically, the rich got one big break on taxes, while the cost of Medicare and SS increased for the average American. Who's getting the hand-out?

I also agree with debt being a necessity. "You need to spend money to make money", so they say.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

The point was that spending under Reagan was different than spending under Johnson and Carter. Reagan improved the national defense while Johnson and Carter spent money on entitlement programs.

An yes, the Soviet Union did implode because they couldn't keep up with the US defense spending. That was the whole strategy.

Being in the US Army, I was well aware of the military superiority in every way of the Soviets during the Cold War. WWIII was a hairline risk when the Soviets kept using their superior tanks, fighter planes and even nuclear arsenal in Germany. The Soviets were in East Germany with a superior military force taunting us and making the US forces in West Germany sweat blood. And they knew they were superior.

I didn't say business sense was a conservative trait. I said most conservatives have a business sense. You turned it around in your interpretation.

In logic, most of which I have forgotten, a true sentence may not be true in the reverse. For instance, a sentence saying all humans are members of the animal kingdom. But the reverse is not true that all animals are humans.

The statement that the rich got the tax breaks, I will reserve for another time. Got to finish something else tonight.

When Reagan took office in 1981, the unemployemnt rate was 7.6% and interest rates and inflation were out of control. His first 2 years in office (recession of 81-82) unemployment peaked at around 10% (I've seen charts at 9.7 and others at 10.8), but then the unemployment rate fell continuously for the next 7 years. When he left office, the rate was around 5 to 5.5%. Nearly 18 million new jobs were created during the Reagan years, giving us the largest peacetime expansion in the history of the U.S.

Also, tax revenue INCREASED under Reagan's tax cuts (not decreased, as you suggested earlier), just like revenue went up after Bush's tax cuts, and JFK's tax cuts, for that matter. Nominal federal revenues doubled in the 80's from a little over $500 billion to over $1 trillion. Income tax revenue grew from $347 billion in 1981 to $550 billion in 1989 - a 58% increase.
Did spending increase under Reagan? Yes. He cut a lot of deals with the democrats who controlled both houses of congress to get his tax policy passed. The biggest spending though, was rebuilding our military that Carter paid little attention to. The Pentagon budget doubled from $158 billion to $304 billion. Domestic spending was actually kept pretty much in check, especially compared to other presidents. In fact, domestic spending as a share of GDP actually fell from 15.3% in 1981 to 12.9% in 1989. It just didn't fall enough to balance the budget.
What is interesting to note though is, the buildup in Defense spending from 1981 to 1989 ($806 billion) is larger than the entire cumulative increase in the budget deficit ($779 billion), which means, if Defense spending had been held to the rate of inflation during those years, the total real deficit would have fallen during the 1980's rather than risen.
But, would we have won the Cold War that way?
Doubtful.

Bobcat, call me American (or AS, or anything else), please. We're all friends here. There is no need for the formalities.

Seriously. We could easily wiki tag each other to the point of oblivion; gathering and regurgitating "facts" off of the internet which seemingly favors each of our own points of view. i.e. Reagan conceded that Carter actually initiated the military build up prior to his term; the ending of the Cold War had as much to do with issues within Poland, Hungary, Afghanistan, Germany, North and South Korea and a bunch of other countries as it did with Reagan's military policies...

But my point is that the so-called conservatives cannot prove that their economic policies are any better than those conceived by the so-called liberals, regardless of what the pundits spew.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln